Chris & Trish Meyer
Chris & Trish Meyer are the founders of CyberMotion, an award-winning Los Angeles motion graphic design studio. Their design and animation work has appeared on shows and promos for CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, The Learning Channel, HBO, and PBS. CyberMotion was one of the first studios to create major release film opening titles using desktop tools (including major films such as The Taleneted Mr. Ripley), and they have also created promotional and trade show videos for corporate clients from Apple Computer to Xerox. They specialize in unusual format videos, having animated for IMAX, CircleVision, the NBC AstroVision sign in Times Square, and the four-block-long Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas.
In addition to their motion graphics work, Trish and Chris have written the books "Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects" and "After Effects Apprentice" (both published by Focal Press). They have written numerous articles on motion graphics for DV magazine, Artbeats.com, and others, and have spoken at AFI, MacWorld, BDA, NAB, and other conferences.
Trish founded CyberMotion after an extensive career in print as a magazine art director for music technology magazines. Her partner Chris, a refugee from the music industry, specializes in sound design and 3D work as well as dealing with multi-format technical issues. Both Trish and Chris have backgrounds as musicians, and a close relationship between sound and picture informs much of their work. They were one of the original beta sites for CoSA (now Adobe) After Effects, and continue to work with that team as well as others to this day.
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Friday, August 22, 2008
Opportunities to show off your work.
There are a few awards show coming up that we wanted to let you know about:
Adobe 2008 MAX Awards
The Adobe MAX Awards recognizes the best uses of Adobe software for creating engaging experiences. Normally, the MAX show is the domain of web content creators, but lately it’s been expanding out to include more video and motion graphics. In keeping with that, this is the first year that there is a category for digital video projects The top three finalists will be invited to show their projects at MAX 2008 in San Francisco Nov 16-19. The winner receives free MAX registration. Award submissions are due September 5. Click here for more information.
 motionfest and motionawards
Call for Entries
These two awards show are connected with the motion 08 conference (which we both will be speaking at). The first is for animation (including Flash, stop motion, 3D, etc. flavors); the second is more for motion graphics artists:
motionfest is a juried competition honoring the best in animation worldwide. Specifically, motionfest recognizes the best animations created for the purpose of entertainment: animated shorts and full-length features. Finalists will be notified by September 12, 2008. Winners of motionfest08 will be announced as part of our opening day animation events, Sunday, October 12, 2008. The deadline to enter is September 8, 2008. Click here for more information.
The motionawards celebrate creative excellence in motion graphics, animation, and vfx, honoring the most current, breakthrough work. All worked entered must be the result of paid creative services and media placement, with the exceptions of public service work, projects for the arts, self-promotion, and student. Finalists will be notified by September 12, 2008. Winners of the 2008 motionawards will be announced Monday, October 13, 2008 at the motionawards party - part of motion08. The deadline to enter is September 8, 2008. Click here for more information.
Save on registration. save $300 on early-bird registration and an additional $200 by using promo code 08stashMO - courtesy of stash. To register, click here.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Special offer for PVC visitors…
Our good friends at Artbeats.com will soon be joining the ranks of ProVideo Coalition sponsors. As part of it, they will be offering a deal where you can get 20% off any footage purchased through 9/10/08. They’ve given me permission to let you know about it before the ads start running, in the event you have a project coming up now where you could use some high-quality footage - and would like to shave a little off the invoice. The coupon code is 3979.
Have a good weekend!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Can the genie be put back in the bottle? Or should we just attach a leash to it?
The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. I find many of the talks relevant to how we think about motion graphic design.
One of the boundaries we must design within are the legal restrictions on the content we might want to use. I’ve written a bit about this previously in blogs on the Public Domain and music licensing. Although I personally believe very strongly in the preservation of the rights of content creators - after all, it’s how people like you and me make money -
Larry Lessig makes an impassioned presentation on how he wishes copyright law would make room for “(re)creation” using previously-created, potentially copyrighted content - think mash-ups (and make sure you watch the three examples that start just past the 8 minute mark; each one is more humorous than the previous one*). If creativity is too restricted, he fears we may become a “Read Only” culture where we only consume, not create.
Click above to watch Larry Lessig’s presentation; click here to see the high-res MP4 version. It will be time well-spent.
(*After watching these examples, I feel compelled to mention how useful it is to master “time remapping” in programs like After Effects. Click here to download a PDF of a tutorial we wrote for Artbeats on the subject; click here to read one Mark Christiansen wrote. Time remapping is also covered in Chapter 27 of our book Creating Motion Graphics, and Lesson 7 of our book After Effects Apprentice.) Also read this article on Artbeat.com on how to smooth out the differences between frames after you’ve changed a clip’s speed.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Time to upgrade, and put those PPC machines to rest…
Just a quick note that Adobe has confirmed that the next version of After Effects will not run on PowerPC (G5, G4, etc.) Macs. The reasoning is given here on Michael Coleman’s blog (he’s the product manager for After Effects).
We’re among those who have been hanging onto our reliable old G5 workstations; this news is dragging us into the 21st century. Fortunately, Apple has made it a bit easier by offering refurbished Intel MacPros from their online store at some very attractive prices, complete with warranty and free shipping. We just received a pair of 3.2 GHz 8-cores (while we were at it, we got a pair of new Cinema displays as well - we had both been using original 22” Cinema displays; Trish paid $4k for hers when it first came out - but it’s been worth it), and might order a third machine soon for the music/podcast studio. Click here and scroll down to see the current models on offer; they do come and go (I’m a bit bummed we didn’t jump on a cheap 2.8 GHz 8-core that was up there this weekend). They have a lot of Intel-based MacBook Pros up there as well.
Part of this upgrade has meant dealing with new RAM configurations, among other things. We’re in the middle of a bad-RAM story; I’ll post more on that after we have a resolution (and try a different vendor for our third machine).
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Another place to find useful scripts and expressions
I completely understand that expressions and scripting in After Effects can be intimidating to users of a more artistic bent. And you can certainly create great work in AE without using expressions or scripting. But every now and then - more often than you might expect - knowing just a little can save you time in creating repetitive, tricky, or precise animation. I liken them to having the ultimate unpaid intern hanging around studio. Fortunately, there are several free web resources available that allow you to dip your toe in these waters.
The latest is Ole Sturm’s XScriptorium site. It has just launched in public beta, and contains a lot of content from the AE online help file (you use Help, don’t you?), but already shows some very nice organization and a few expressions described clearly from a “so you want to do this” point of view. It is based on code contributions from users; not just Ole. He also allows you to “tip” the expression or script’s creator should you find their contribution useful. Check it out.
In this vein, make sure you also check out the established sites MotionScript.com by the friendly guru Dan Ebberts (which is as much about learning how to write expressions and scripts as it is a resource for useful expressions), and AEnhancers, a moderated forum on scripting and expressions with multiple contributors.
And of course, our own books Creating Motion Graphics and After Effects Apprentice have introductory chapters on expressions. In particular, check out the bonus chapter on CMG’s DVD-ROM which is a rather detailed resource for writing more advanced expressions, with examples.
A few hours spent learning “just enough to be dangerous” will more than repay you in time saved, I promise.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process.
The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. Fortunately, TED tapes their presentations, and has been making an effort to post their huge archive of talks for free on the internet.
While browsing these talks, I was particularly taken by Amy Tan’s presentation on “Where does creativity hide?” It’s a humorous review of her own creative process. Although she comes from a different field (she’s the novelist behind The Joy Luck Club , The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses), I found it very entertaining as well as insightful, as it bounced from personal creativity to deciding to what we’re going to do with our lives, using her mother, advanced physics, and world events as touchstones. I hope you enjoy it as well.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Buster Design brings the print ads to life with excellent 3D animation and sound design.
As mentioned earlier, we will be discussing motion graphics projects executed by other studios. This time around, it’s Buster Design and the on-air promos they created for Fringe, a new series premiering this September on FOX - click here to view movies of the final animations. I had the chance to chat with Brandon Pleus of Buster about what went into this project.
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Sunday, August 03, 2008
Silhouettes and particles are two main features of this film festival promo.
As we mentioned in a recent post, we’d like to start featuring projects by other motion graphics artists, including some background on what went into their creation. First up is a promo for the Nordisk Panorama 5 Cities Film Festival 2008 created by André Hedetoft. Two of the components of this promo that particularly caught our eye were the use of silhouetted figures, and the lovely particle effects.
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Chris Meyer | 09/05- 11:26 AM
A wonderful website dedicated to commentary on opening title design. One of our favorite motion graphics design jobs is creating the opening title sequence…
Scott Gentry | 09/04- 07:46 AM
VideoGuys offers 5% discount when you register at PVC. Most websites use affiliate programs to generate revenue. While we’re certainly not against…
Steve Hullfish | 09/04- 07:38 AM
Tips for Avid Editors One of the most useful things I ever did as I began to master the Avid user interface was – I know this will be hard to believe –…
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